Motor Mouth: Predictions for an even more unpredictable automotive future
David Booth
David Booth is Driving’s senior writer as well as the producer of Driving.ca’s Driving into the Future panels and Motor Mouth podcasts. Having written about everything from the exact benefits of Diamond Like Coating (DLC) on motorcycle camshafts to why Range Rovers are the best vehicles for those suffering from opioid-induced constipation, Booth leaves no stone unturned in his quest for automotive veritas. Besides his long tenure with Driving, he was the editor in chief of Autovision magazine for 25 years and his stories have been published in motorcycle magazines around the world including the United States, England, Germany and Australia.
Education
Graduating from Queen Elizabeth High School in 1973, Booth moved from his Northern Quebec hometown of Sept-Iles — also home to Montreal Canadiens great, Guy Carbonneau — to Ottawa to study Mechanical Engineering at Carleton University. There, he wrote a thesis on the then-burgeoning technology of anti-lock brakes for motorcycles and spent time researching the also then-burgeoning use of water tunnels for aerodynamic testing.
Experience
After three years writing for Cycle Canada magazine and another three working for the then oldest magazine in Canada, Canadian Automotive Trade, Booth, along with current Driving writer Brian Harper and then Toronto Star contributor Alex Law, created an automotive editorial services group that supplied road tests, news, and service bulletins to what was then called Southam newspapers.
When Southam became Postmedia with its purchase by Conrad Black and the subsequent introduction of the National Post, Booth was asked to start up the then Driver’s Edge section, which became Driving.ca when Postmedia moved into the digital age. In the past 41 years, Booth has tested well over 500 motorcycles, 1,500 passenger cars, and nearly every significant supercar of the last 30 years. His passion — and proudest achievement — is Motor Mouth, his weekly column that, after some 30 years, remains as incisive and opinionated as ever.
Personal
Booth remains an avid sports enthusiast — read: fitness freak — whose favorite activities include punching boxing bags until his hands bleed and running ski hills with as little respect for the medial meniscus as 65-year-old knees can bear. His true passion, however, remains motorcycles. If he’s not in his garage tinkering with his prized 1983 CB1100RC — or resurrecting another one — he’s riding Italy’s famed Stelvio Pass with his beloved — and much-modified — Suzuki V-Strom 1000.
Booth has been known to accept the occasional mojito from strangers, and the apples of his eye are a certain fellow Driving contributor and his son, Matthew, who is Global Vice-President of something — though he’s never quite sure what. He welcomes feedback, criticism and suggestions at David@davebooth.ca.